Share your Tips and tricks for Neighborhood watching for houses (Houston: for sale, real estate market)

[DebinD]

Can you tell me your tips and tricks for checking out a neighborhood for pre-market homes?

[Rice&Curry]

Ask top performing local realtors. Usually people in neighborhood know these things, go jogging in your target area and ask people. Don't ring bells, ask someone who is already outside. Leave your e-mail address with them with request to post it on their HOA mailing list or Facebook group. If there is renovation going on a house then ask. In NYC people even check obituaries. You can stick a note on nearest church's announcement board to contact you.

[BigDGeek]

Look out for estate sales; in this area, that often indicates a house that is soon to be on the market. Ditto for a Pod out front of a house that has not recently sold; it means they are probably renovating and may sell soon.

In this neighborhood, a lot of the time it goes meat wagon + estate sale = for sale sign coming soon.

[MckinneyOwnr]

If you find a house you like while house hunting, check it out with a realtor. After you've toured the home, go back and check it out by yourself, multiple times. I go early in the morning, so I can find out what the rush hour traffic is like to get in/out of a neighborhood. I go late afternoon, so I can see if there are kids playing, cars parked on the street, etc.

Talk to the people that live around the house. Ask them everything you can think of to ask, don't assume ANYTHING about the house. I failed on this one with our current house, and it's still something I'm pissed off about.

Long story short, we bought a home in an HOA area, and we were told by our realtor (the listing agent also claimed pool access) multiple times we had access to a community pool. So, to us, that made up for us having a backyard that sloped a bit and was too small for a decent pool. We were given the run around on access cards for the pool area, etc, until we closed and then it was too late. I had already talked to the neighbors about a lot of things... mentioning the pool never came up.

Later on, when we tried to contact our HOA for info about the pool, they told us there was no pool. Asked our neighbors about it and they confirmed it. Had I asked them more specific details before buying, we wouldn't be living here, most likely.

Talking to the neighbors is one of the most important parts of house hunting. After all, you're going to be living next to them for years probably. They can tell you the state of the neighborhood, who is a good neighbor, and who isn't. Had I asked a few more questions, I wouldn't have been suckered into our current house by our realtor.

[DebinD]

Thanks everyone. I'm mostly interested in trying to get to the point of finding a house we like that is up for sale.
We drove through last weekend - I found houses that were boarded up or had paint/ floor/roofing signs out front. I wrote down all the addresses. I checked them on zillow and Dallas CAD. I found the ones with the right number of bedrooms/ square feet and they happened to be owned by older people, one of which had just moved to an apartment because their owner address changed, so I sent all of them a note in the mail. We will see if we get any calls or emails.
I guess we will drive every week - I hope that's frequently enough.
I'm going to print out a map so I can be sure we are driving up and down all the streets. unfortunately Richardson has a mayors race and there are tons of signs out mixed in with the contractor signs.

Anything else?

[TurtleCreek80]

I still can't tell from your posts if you're doing this alone or working with a well-connected Richardson realtor. It is going to be nearly impossible to find a home without a realtor in this low inventory market.

Case in point: my neighbor's home just sold, no sign in the yard, no comings and goings of people looking at it. We literally would not have known this transaction had taken place if we hadn't spotted their moving van and walked over to ask what was going on. My first thought was that they were having new furniture delivered since they're young and only have been there a few years. Apparently they were having a social conversation with a realtor friend about when (in the future) they wanted to move into the Park Cities. Realtor friend mentioned she had clients who wanted to move into our neighborhoods (literally nothing on the market here) and had another client who was almost finished building their new home and needing to sell their starter home in HPISD. Clients came over to see my neighbor's house and wrote a contract on the spot; my neighbors did the same with the realtors other clients home. Boom! 2 houses sold completely off the market and out of MLS.

Stories like this are happening all over the tightest real estate markets in Dallas right now. Get yourself a good, plugged-in realtor to help with your efforts!

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

I still can't tell from your posts if you're doing this alone or working with a well-connected Richardson realtor. It is going to be nearly impossible to find a home without a realtor in this low inventory market. .

Stories like this are happening all over the tightest real estate markets in Dallas right now. Get yourself a good, plugged-in realtor to help with your efforts!

Excellent advice here. If you're trying to work without a realtor, you are really wasting your time!

[Pama]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

Excellent advice here. If you're trying to work without a realtor, you are really wasting your time!

If you are working with a so so realtor than it is waste of both time AND money. Find a good one or just do it yourself.

[Johnhw2]

Not only a good realtor but a realtor with strong listing side connections will serve you best.

In Houston (and perhaps Dallas area), under MLS or real estate rules a listing agent had 72 hrs to put a new listing on the public MLS. So during those 3 days the home gets shown to those wanting an early look if she knows about the interest. So find a strong listing or Sale side realtor, just search MLS for your preferred neighborhood and see who has most of the listing and work with them

[DebinD]

I have a realtor that is very good - she is a pretty good friend and has worked with several other friends all over Dallas and they have all been very pleased - I've spoken to them privately to make sure I wasn't getting trapped because she was a friend. They live very close to the neighborhood we want (the Reservation) but not in it. When I spoke to my realtor recently (we haven't gotten ours on the market yet and I plan to sell ours first, because we know we won't get a contingency sale) - she is VP of one of the local agencies and she said she would be in contact with a couple of her agents that specalize in the Reservation. So I believe we are in good hands. Our stager also is a realtor and he knows where we are looking so that's a bonus realtor that knows we are looking.

I've also contacted the people I know in the reservation and let them know that we are looking. And I contacted the school and the lady that answered the phone gave some houses that she knew of that were going on the market soon. I will be calling her again!

However, I felt that I wanted to be more aggressive at this point - even if it is just practice for after we sell. So I'm just gathering info at this point and practicing my skills
My kids start school this fall and I wanted to throw everything at this until July or so and then we will have to start looking at 2nd choice neighborhoods.